Da Vinci's Demons 1.06 "The Devil" REVIEW

TV REVIEW Leonardo vamps it up

TRIVIA Episode writer Brian Nelson was responsible for the screenplays for Hard Candy and 30 Days Of Night . His co-writer Marco Ramirez is a regular scribe on Sons Of Anarchy .

JET SET WILLIES Never let it be said that Da Vinci's Demons isn't equal opportunities about its nudity. You won't see many TV episodes this year with more male genitalia on show than you get here.

DA VINCI VISION This week Leonardo constructs a perfect three-dimensional recreation of the interior of Vlad's castle using little more than his view of the exterior and a rather gruesome sculpture Vlad's carved out of the Abyssinian's hand – 15th century computer-aided design.

MAKING HISTORY The life of the real Vlad Tepes – who in-part inspired Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula (the family name was Dracul) – really would have coincided with Da Vinci's. He was the ruler of Wallachia, a region of the modern-day Romania, over three separate reins, and gained the "Vlad the Impaler" nickname because of his penchant for nastiness (he's thought to have killed tens of thousands) and, yes, impaling people.

SPECULATION The Turk keeps talking about time being circular, effectively allowing the Sons of Mithras to see things before they happen. Is this just how they think they perceive things to be, or is there some genuine timey-wimey wobbly stuff in the show? We haven't made our minds up yet...

SPECULATION 2 If Leonardo's mother is still alive, where is she? And what does she has to do with the Book of Leaves? Could she be a daughter of Mithras?

COUNTING UP This isn't showrunner David Goyer's first stab at Dracula. He appeared in the guise of "Drake" in Blade: Trinity , which Goyer wrote and directed.